The RAIL Project

UNC Asheville’s RAIL Project Symposium Tells the Story of Black Prisoners Forced to Build Railway

By UNC Asheville

March 28^th, 2023

Asheville was a tiny town of 2,600 people until the Western North Carolina (WNC) Railroad opened up a stretch of railway in 1879 through the Blue Ridge Mountains and allowed Asheville to become what it is today, a thriving center of commerce and culture.

According to UNC Asheville Professor of History Dan Pierce, history hailed a former Confederate officer for leading this major infrastructure investment for generations, but erased the loss of blood, sweat, and lives of the Black prisoners. Often unfairly convicted, they were forced for more than two decades to build this complex tunnel and track system from Salisbury, Morganton, Old Fort, to Azalea. After more than 140 years, that’s changing.

The stories of the more than 3,000 Black men, who suffered under an unjust system for “progress,” are now being honored at an upcoming, three-day symposium at University of North Carolina Asheville hosted by the Rail and Incarcerated Laborer (RAIL) Project.

Shortly after police killed George Floyd in 2020, sparking a national racial reckoning, Pierce felt moved to action. “I think you need to use what you have… use something in your backyard,” he said. For him, that meant telling the whole story behind the iconic railway that built Asheville.

“Here is this infrastructure project, it's probably the most important infrastructure project in the history of Western North Carolina. It transformed this area. It transformed Asheville, practically overnight,” he says. “I think it's important to say, the people who did this work — and not only did the work but suffered and bled and died in the process — need to be acknowledged.”

Up to that point, the only collective memory of the incarcerated laborers was the popular folk song “Swannanoa Tunnel,” named after one of the tunnels they dug, and one unremarkable state historical marker. But Pierce connected with his good friend, historian, and Marion, North Carolina, Mayor Steve Little with a plan to lift up their stories by founding the RAIL Project. The project grew to include a 10-member RAIL Committee that participates actively in their work, as well as committed folks from UNC Asheville and the larger community.

Many of the men were arrested, often wrongfully or for petty crimes, specifically to do this work. Articles at that time in the Asheville Citizen noted that the railroad needed more labor, including the line: “prosecutors across the state have been notified.” It was a call to action for police to arrest more young Black men to complete the railway.

“It's important to acknowledge, as a nation, as a state, as a community, the cost of things and the injustice,” Pierce said.

To do that, the RAIL Project placed a memorial to the WNC project workers near Andrews Geyser, a fountain five miles outside of Ridgecrest, North Carolina, near the Old Fort Mountain tracks, where stockades have been found. The project garnered wide support, funding, and media attention.

They lucked upon Old Fort residents Paul Twitty and his assistant Jimmy Logan to create the memorial. “They really felt strongly, personally, about the importance of this,” says Pierce. Both incorporated stones that had personal significance to them into the actual sculpture. They also included prisoners’ names found in the 1880 census and others who were shot trying to escape. “That was really important,” he says, “to personalize it as much as possible.”

They unveiled the memorial in October 2021 — but the project didn’t stop there. Next up was a search for some of the 125-300 convicted laborers who died during the railway construction. Ten years earlier, a local resident who grew up in the area had shown Mayor Little a place her parents always said was a “convict graveyard.” The RAIL Project was already working with a human remains detection expert and dog who quickly confirmed there were graves at that site. With their help and ground-penetrating radar, they found what is almost surely a trench of buried victims. They plan to acknowledge those lost with a memorial after they complete work on three historical panels.

Guests at the upcoming RAIL Project Symposium can explore key historic areas in Old Fort. Running from March 30 to April 1, the event will focus on the history of the WNC Railroad, local African American history, and the use of human remains-detection dogs to locate historic burial grounds along the railroad construction.

It will also include a full day of panels and roundtable discussions with regional experts on the UNC Asheville campus and open with a keynote lecture by Darin Waters, deputy secretary for the North Carolina Office of Archives and History. The event is free and open to everyone. Register in advance through Eventbrite to attend.

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